This went up a couple of days ago and was circulated by Emergent Village (yeah!). Here’s an excerpt, click the link to read the full text.
At the end of November, one of our local schools suffered a tragic loss. A student died by suicide. Although the people investigating have not officially stated whether bullying was involved, that was the conclusion reached by many of the student’s peers. How sad that aggression in schools has progressed to the point that when a student ends her life, that is the first thing to come to mind. [more]
The chilling thing is, that yes I was a victim of bullying. I gave just as good as I got, because that’s all I knew, and it had immediate payback instead of the Better Ways others were trying to teach me, which took weeks or years to work. Hatred begets hate, and while others might have had the maturity to see that and break the cycle, I didn’t get that till well into my 20s.
I wonder why more of us who suffer through is don’t find each other, or help each other in the midst of it. Is it fear? I remember that I lost a friend in middle school because I was afraid that if we stayed friends, it would get worse, since both of us were being bullied. I regret that. We might have been good friends, and both been less lonely. Middle school really doe suck for a lot of people.
Most of us learned really unhealthy coping strategies. And sadly, the church doesn’t always help. Yesterday, a kid said, right in the middle of the youth service, that high school sucks. I know he wasn’t just messing around–he meant it. Unfortunately, most kids there just snickered.